Dark Valentines
by jake111
Summary: Murder, Lies, Dames, and Thugs. All in a days work for Nick Valentine.


I'd like to say crime doesn't pay, I really would, but when the judge is taking a two hundred year recess in a vault, the jury is ordering settlers off the menu, and the police are dust on your shoes, well… Let's just say, cardiologists had better decide which wine pairs best with their specialty.

The sign above the door, in the half-light, reads Barnaby's Social Club. An authentic English bar serving authentic English drinks, just down the street from the authentic Bunker Hill. Inside, from the salvaged paneling to the prime rib to the welsh rabbit that wasn't really welsh or rabbit to the dartboard painted on the wall at the end of the bar, it's Union Jacks all the way. And it figures, Barnaby's authentic too, 100 percent pure, Canadian.

I always sit at the bar.

If you ask Barnaby where he's from, he'll tell you he's pre-war, over here on business from Jolly Old England, ghoulified after the Bombs, and has been bouncing around the eastern seaboard ever since, a modern day Percival spreading the values of the empire on which the sun shall never set.

If you ask anyone who was on the caravan he came down with, they'll tell you he was born forty years ago in Toronto, fell in a crater twenty years ago and won the ugly lottery before someone found him and dragged him out. Between then and now he's worked the caravans and played scavver before setting up shop here. Still, it's a harmless racket, if you believe everything your told, every ghoulified mercenary was special ops back before the war and every Chinese officer sword that turns up in the market once belonged to General Jingwei himself.

"Nicky, if it isn't my favorite Clockwork Bobby, can I get you a pint of my finest motor oil?"

"It's Synth Detective Barney, and I'll have a scotch on the rocks." That's me, Nick Valentine, Synth Detective. I've been in this game for a while now, haven't found a girl who can stand my mechanical mug for more than a night yet, and as for kids, well I'm a synthetic man, got all the parts, but not the juice, if you catch my drift. I enjoy liquor, women, and a good game of chess. I've been to prison more than once, DC security likes me well enough, but the Mayor has it out for my ass. I assume I'm a native son of Boston, but how the hell would I know? My creators aren't exactly the types for a family brunch every Sunday and if I run into any of my brothers or sisters, odds are I'll need my gun. When I get knocked off in an alley sometime, the only one who'll really give a damn is Ellie, and she knows the risks of what I do.

Barnaby puts the scotch on the table in front of me and I take a sip. It's shit, but it goes down, Old Nick was a real connoisseur when it came to scotch, a habit picked up from hanging around some rich dames who were into some heavy cloak and dagger. Barnaby found himself some glasses to clean and leaned on the bar. "So Nicky, what drags you all the way up here from the Great Green Jewel?"

"Usual business, girl ran off with her boyfriend. Her parents got worried and hired me to make sure she's alright." I pulled a cigarette out, but when I went for my lighter, the fingers locked up and snipped the cigarette in two, damn servos. The patch jobs weren't doing it anymore, I'd have to talk to Amari, see if she could get me a replacement.

"And is she?"

I bang my skeleton hand on the bar to knock it back into whack and pull out another cigarette. Barnaby's nice enough to offer me a light.

"Yeah, relationship blew up when she found him in bed with another dame, so now she's doing the whole walk the world and find herself routine by signing on to the caravan routes. Gave me a letter to take back and promised she'd cycle through Diamond City again as soon as she could." These were the cases I liked, quick, clean, no bodies, no gunplay.

"All in a day's work for the Commonwealth's Clockwork Bobby, eh Nicky old boy."

I was about to correct him when She walked up to the bar.

"Excuse me, someone said you keep the darts behind the bar."

She had hair like fire and emeralds for eyes, with tight leather armor and legs that went all the way down to the floor. Her get-up didn't leave much to the imagination, but that was okay, I'm an imaginative guy.

Barnaby noticed too, took him a solid second before he answered. "Pardon… oh yes the darts, course love."

Green Eyes blushed at the attention, adding some rubies to the collection, "Thank you, it's just I'm waiting for a friend, are you sure it's all right?"

"Course love, course, that's what it's there for. Here you are love."

Green Eyes kept on blushing, "Thank you," and then the emeralds were on me. "Oh, I'm sorry, I hope I didn't bother you."

I took another drag of my smoke, "I'm glad you did, in fact if you'd like to settle a homestead, I'd like that too."

The rubies shone even brighter, "Thank you… for the darts, I mean."

Then Green Eyes took her long legs and walked away. "Hey Barney, those eyes, that hair…"

The bartender shook his head, "Not for us old sport, you maybe, least you come with a story they can tell their friends, nobody wants to say they shagged a ghoul."

"You gotta loosen up on yourself Barney, just turn up that faux English accent of yours and your golden. Now pour me another, will you?" I couldn't get drunk, but how's that old saying go, if there's a will, there's a way, and I certainly have the will.

Barnaby shook his head and chuckled, "Sure thing mat-watch out!"

Something shot past my face, inches from my nose and I damn near went for my gun. There was a soft thwack and Barnaby was pointing down the bar, "Bloody bullseye, she made it Nicky, your head was right in front of the target and she still made it."

"Yeah well, I'm happy for her." I tapped my nose to make sure none of the rubber had come off, and then Green Eyes was back again.

"I'm so sorry Mister, I didn't know your head was in the way."

"Neither did my head," I pulled a smile, "As long as it's you though."

"I really am sorry…"

Barnaby decided to stick his head in, "Sorry, why we haven't had a bullseye all week, this calls for a drink, and dinner on the house." I threw him a look, "With Nicky of course." That's my Barney.

When the fresh round came out we toasted her throwing arm and questioned the logic of putting a dartboard at head level on one end of the bar. By the time we moved to a table, I knew her name was Bonnie, by the time dinner was over I had a fairly solid idea that everything about her was alright with me.

"Bonnie, you've got that look again."

The observation startled her, "Oh, what look?"

"The dark one, you get it every time you look towards the door."

The rubies were back, "Oh… well I…"

I already knew where this was going. "Something to do with that friend you were waiting for?"

"Well…" The emeralds dropped down to the table. "I'm sorry Mister Valentine, it's just, I've never done anything like this before, picking up a guy at a bar, I mean."

Shy one, maybe from the settlements up north. "Hey, don't worry about it, Barney might as well have picked us both up."

The emeralds were still on the table, I stood up and patted her on the shoulder. "Come on Bonnie, are you staying around here?"

"Why yes… I mean…"

"let me walk you home."

"Well… I mean… you don't…"

I held up the hand that still looked like a hand, "Bonnie, let me walk you home."

I'm nothing if not a gentleman, though the man part is arguable. I settled my tab with Barnaby and walked Bonnie out, Barnaby's grin was about five minutes too late, this night wasn't going to end that way, certainly didn't seem like it.

Bonnie lived about two blocks down, just a street away from the Hill. It was a ruined apartment building that some entrepreneurial soul had decided to restore and put back to its original purpose. Of course, by restore, I mean they dragged a security door from somewhere, set it up in front of the door, and boarded up the windows. Real swanky place, even had a doorman, I don't know if he tipped his hat to me, I was too busy dodging the bullets.

"Look out Miss Bonnie, one of dem robotses after ya!" I peeked around the corner, whoever owned the place had sprung for a bad suit to stuff the gorilla in, but, fortunately for me, must not have put the same effort into making sure the big galoot knew how to shoot.

Bonnie put her hands to the stars and stepped out of the alley I'd pulled us into. "Relax Mikey, he's with me. This is my friend Nick."

I didn't step out of the alley until after Mikey had the ground at gun point instead of me. To be fair to the big ape, he did look guilty, and he apologized. "I'm sorry Mista Nick, Mista Benny tells me I'm supposed to shoot any robots dat show up."

I dusted off my coat and went for another cigarette, can't blame the kid, he seemed like the kind of guy who was playing tic tac toe on the chessboard and wondering why there were so many squares. "It's alright Mikey, not the first time I've been shot at for my gorgeous face. Just walking Miss Bonnie up to her apartment."

Mikey broke into a grin that only a five year old could pull off. "Ah, thass nice a you Mister Nick, Miss Bonnie muss have a lotta friends, she got another one waitin for her in her room."

I threw Bonnie a look, "Sound's like you've got company."

The emeralds were on the ground again, "Oh well, yes it seems so, I wonder…"

"The guy you were waiting on, the one who never showed?" That was the obvious answer, what wasn't obvious was why she was acting like I'd just pulled a syringe of psycho out of her purse.

"Yes, I suppose it must be. Don't bother coming to the door."

Something smelled like week-old mirelurk cakes here. "Let me walk you up."

Bonnie pulled a face like I'd just drawn my pistol on her. "No, no that's not necessary," she must have realized how she looked because she tried to clamp down on it, and did a pretty decent job too. If you hadn't seen the way she looked a second before, you'd have never known anything was wrong. "I guess I'll see you at Barnaby's again, maybe?"

"Don't call us, we'll call you, is that it?" I'd knew the routine, and I had my guesses on the why.

I suppose I should take how long it took her to answer as a compliment, but the answer was still the same. "Yeah, that's it Nick, but I still had a great time tonight, thank you."

She went her way, I went mine, and Mikey just looked confused.

Wasn't ideal, the way the evening ended, not the way I'd planned it at least. But then again, how can you plan something like that. Guy meets girl, girl throws dart, girl meets guy, doesn't make much sense, but it doesn't have to. It was a nice evening, short, but nice, Bonnie was a nice girl, and I decided to leave it at that, nice girl. Still, there was a circuit in the back of my head that told me I'd missed something.

It was near midnight, so I decided to grab a bed on the Hill and wait until morning to head back to Diamond City. Lot of things came out at night in Boston, take the wrong shortcut and you were likely to end up at a supermutant dinner party in your honor.

I was thinking of those green eyes and that fiery hair while I got a room, it was a pleasant few minutes. And then I went to bed, perchance to dream of something other than electric sheep. I don't exactly need sleep, but it's a good way to kill time, and my brain works better if it gets a full system reboot every now and again.

So I wasn't exactly shooting the moon when I got dragged out of them at the crack of dawn and frogmarched out of town by a couple of young guns. The Caravaneer's Guild was a group of old merchants that served as the governing body of Bunker Hill, they were the guys who made sure everyone on the caravans got their pay, cut the deals to bribe the rest of the wasteland to leave the Hill be, and kept a couple of guys on payroll to shoot any threat that wouldn't accept caps and apparently roust Synth Detectives from a very enjoyable night's sleep.

The guns wouldn't tell me where they were dragging me, but it didn't take a synth in my profession to realize they were dragging me back to Bonnie's place.

When we got there, I knew I should have walked Bonnie to her door last night, maybe even stayed the whole night, because the guy standing out and the ape of a corpse lying next to him could only mean one thing.

Patrick Brooks was fifty years old, a tall man with hair the color of the trail dust that was ingrained in the lines on his face. He was born on the caravan trails, grew up on the caravan trails, and swore up and down that he would die on the caravan trails until, after thirty years as a guard, he caught a bullet to the hip and a stim healed it wrong. His limp meant he couldn't keep up with the caravans anymore, so he found himself a job as the head of Bunker Hill's local militia.

He didn't have to say anything, I knew why I was here. "She's dead, isn't she Pat?"

He nodded, and accepted the cigarette and the light when I offered it. "We tracked her back to Barnaby's, he said you were the one to leave with her last night. One of the other tenants found him when they got up, told the others, and when they did a headcount, they found your girl in her room. Then they sent for us."

I dropped to my haunches and had a look at what used to be Mikey, the childlike gleam was gone from his eyes and there was a neat little hole just behind his right ear. Must have been a 22. Anything larger would have made more of a mess. Powder burns meant that the gun had been right next to his head. Old Nick had seen this sort of thing dozens of times chasing the Mob. "Who owns the place?"

"Marty Conner, runs a caravan, picks up the caps once a month when he's back in town. He's on a run up to Nashua, left a week ago, fully loaded." Contrary to what you might read in a two cap dreadful, the head of a caravan can't just slip away in the middle of a run, at least if he doesn't want to everyone under him some astoundingly big bonuses, so that ruled Conner out as a suspect. "Mikey was his nephew."

"Damn, he's in for a nasty surprise when he gets back." I took a look at the door, old world security, thick metal with maglocks, if you didn't know the code, you weren't getting in without more firepower than a tank brigade sponsored by the NRA. There wasn't even a dent in the metal, and Mikey didn't have anything but the wound that killed him, so he wasn't tortured. "Is it just her in there, she had a visitor last night. "

"The only bodies we found were your girl and Mikey." His old shoe leather lips pulled into a scowl and he asked the question I'd been expecting. "Listen Nick, how long have you known this girl?"

"Just met her last night. She almost put a dart through my skull and that broke the ice well enough. We talked, I walked her home, Mikey over there tried to add some new lead components to my frame, but Bonnie, that's her name by the way, calmed him down and told me to take a hike."

"You sure?"

I knew the implication he was driving at, and if it were almost anyone else, I would have socked him one. "Pat, we've known each other for about ten years, can you think of any time I've put a bullet in someone who didn't deserve it?"

Pat didn't answer, he didn't have to, we both knew the answer to that. He pushed the smoke out through his teeth and sucked another dose of nicotine down his windpipe. "The Guild wants this put down quick, murder around the Hill is bad for business. We'll pay you the standard fee."

I would have done it for free, but you don't turn away caps from those who can afford to part with them. "Show me the room."

Bonnie's apartment was on the top floor, it looked like a deathclaw had been hired as the interior designer. The whole place had been tossed, and in the middle of the room, like the eye in a hurricane, what used to be Bonnie lay flat on her back. It was messier this time, the wound had been through the eye, but most of the head was still intact, so it was most likely the same gun that had killed Mikey. Her head was to the door, meaning she'd likely been shot as she was coming in. "Any of the neighbors hear the shots last night?"

"No, they all said it had been a pretty normal night."

Definitely a small caliber pistol, probably suppressed to. "Have the boys canvas the neighbors, see if any of them saw Bonnie's guest.

I did a sweep of the room, if there had been anything valuable, it had been taken. There were a few outfits, some cooking supplies, and a few knick-knacks decorating the place, but nothing worth the effort. I struck gold under an old towel stained with dried blood beneath her bed though, a damn good hiding place, I'll give her that. A tiny notebook was filled with names and dates with numbers next to each, and one of them was for last night, someone named Clark, but he didn't have a number. There was another name under it, this one didn't have a date or a number, but it was underlined, Bell.

By the time Pat was back, I'd finished my search. "None of the neighbors saw a damn thing, if they did they aren't talking."

That tied up one loose end, "Pat, do the names Clarke or Bell mean anything to you?"

The former Caravaneer hemmed and hawed for a few minutes while he wracked his brain, as was his way. Finally his brahmin of a brain plodded its way to the destination. "Known a lot of Clarks in my time, none that would have anything to do with this though. As for Bell, could be that new Liberty Bell trading company that set up shop in the old pizza place up the way. Three caravans to the name, money's being fronted by Malcom Latimer."

Perfect, "Well, I think it's time for a slice, don't you Pat?"

On the way over, I explained my theory as to what happened. Someone had wanted something Bonnie had, that was the person she was supposed to meet at Barnaby's place. I'd put my joint screws down on the bet that it was this Clark guy. While we had gotten to know each other over dinner, this guy was probably ransacking Bonnie's room for whatever he was searching for. He probably knew Bonnie, convinced Mikey to let him in. When I dropped her off and she went up to her room, she interrupted him. He panicked, or maybe it was part of the plan, and shot her. With her dead, he went back to his business. Whether or not he found what he was looking for, he left at some point during the night. On his way out, he put a bullet in Mikey, the only other person who had seen him.

Liberty Bell trading company was just across the street from the back wall of the Hill, the pizza place's sign had long since been worn away by the sands of time and had been replaced with a brown drawing of a cracked bell. At least they knew their history. A Brahmin pen had been erected on the street next to the former restaurant and the tables had been converted into desks.

The proprietor of the establishment had clearly chosen this place because of his deep similarities with the old world bread. They had the same shape after all, round, and they were both greasy, and red.

"What the hell are you bothering me for? I've got work to do and not enough people to do it, I don't have time to waste dealing with stupid people."

Always nice to see complete cooperation in an investigation, but my sensors must have been acting up, because I sure wasn't seeing it now.

Pat took the lead. "I'm with the militia, does a woman named Bonnie work here?"

"Not after today she doesn't, I'm drownin' in the books and that bitch decides today is the day to take off. No, now it's just me, Jonesy, and Riley. Why, you bust her or something?"

I let Pat do his thing and deal with our illustrious host while I had a look at Bonnie's former coworkers. The man who seemed to be Jonesy was rail thin and jittery, he had all the makings of a Hollywood star going supernova, a chem addict, great. The other man was just the opposite, tall, well built, with a huge square scar on his forehead, Riley I presume. Neither man seemed to take their eyes off of us while we were inside. Pat went through his routine, but that wouldn't get him anywhere, so I didn't bother paying attention.

No, I just wandered around the office with my hands in my pockets, and then I saw the big board on the wall, the schedule, with the dates for every caravan leaving and returning and the person in charge of it, and suddenly it all made sense. Bonnie's hesitation, the care the assassin took to cover his tracks, the ransacked apartment, the dates and the numbers in the little notebook, all of the pieces just clicked together.

I pulled the book out of my coat and held it up in my left hand. "Excuse me boys, but would you mind showing me your pistols?"

Jonesy didn't seem to understand what I said, but Riley did, and he was happy to oblige. And when that 22. Caliber pistol was in my face, I knew I had my man. And if my pistol hadn't made a new hole in my coat and two new holes in his stomach, I would have had a new hole in my head.

Riley Clark was a former Gunner, and the ideals had certainly stuck with him. He might have gone legit, but he was still skimming off the top of the caravan profits. When Bonnie caught him and had the ledgers to prove it, he asked her to meet him so he could explain himself, then he dodged her to search her apartment. He talked Mikey into letting him in, wrecked the place, and when he couldn't find it he killed her, and he killed Mikey to cover his tracks.

Three people were dead because one man got greedy.

Crime pays in the wasteland, but this time, it didn't.

And that's enough for me.


End file.
